Computersight -

Desktop Background

The most simple customisation of all is having your own background. To change you background, Ctrl Click the Desktop and choose Change Desktop Background. Now you can choose from the images Apple have already supplied you. Alternatively, you can use an image of your own, either from your iPhoto Albums or if you click the + button you can browse your mac for backgrounds. Unlike Windows you can even use Photoshop PSD files as well as the usual JPEGs, GIFs, PNGs or TIFFs. You can use the Change Picture option to make smooth transitions between backgrounds saved in a folder of your choice.

Window Background

Also you can easily change the background colour of your windows in Finder. Open up Finder and press ⌘ + 1 to view as icons, then ⌘ + J to show View options. At the bottom of the window you can change the background colour. Click the white square and select your colour from swatches there.

Alternatively you can select a background image for your Finder windows. Choose Picture and drag your image to the rounded square. Remember that the image will not tile or scale so try to select an image the same size as your screen resolution.

Appearance

Open System Preferences (the cog icon on your dock) and click Appearance to change your OS X user interface. The first option changes the appearance. You can change the colour of buttons, checkboxes, and drop down boxes. You only have the choice of blue and grey. Next option is Highlight Color, used for selecting text. Unlike Appearance you have a few more choices of colours, in case the default blue is not clear enough.

You can also change the layout of the scrollbars. This is useful if you’re used to previous versions of Mac OS or have switched from Windows to OS X. Use Smooth Scrolling will cause the window to scroll to a point rather than jumping to it when you click on the scrollbar.

Exposé

Exposé shows all windows that are currently open as small thumbnails. For ex-Windows users this is similar to pressing Winkey + Tab. Also it can be set to show all windows open from the current application, or simply hide all windows to reveal the desktop. It can be activated by shortcut key (F3), by scrolling to a corner of the screen, or using mouse button 4 (this can be changed in System Preferences > Mouse).

Go to System Preferences and click on Exposé & Spaces. The top half of the screen lets you assign specific actions when you hold the mouse at the corner your screen for a short period of time. To set an action click on a drop down box to assign an action to its corresponding corner. The bottom half of the window is all your Exposé controls. To set your Exposé controls, select a key from the dropdown boxes (the left column is for the keyboard and the right for the mouse). To trigger an Exposé control hold down the Fn key and the key you assign.

Desktop Items

In any Finder window click on the Finder menu next to the  icon. In the general tab you can choose what to show on your desktop (Hard Disks, External Disks, CDs, DVDs, and i Pods, or Connected Servers). You can also choose what folder will open by default when Finder is loaded.

Spaces

If you use multiple programs at one time, your desktop may get very cluttered. Spaces is a good way of organising your desktop into a multitude desktops in order to de-clutter your screen. To enable spaces click on System Preferences then Exposé & Spaces. Click on the Spaces tab and check the Enable Spaces box to activate spaces. To add or remove spaces click on the “+” and “-” buttons to add columns and rows.

You can assign currently running applications to spaces in the Application Assignments list. To add an application click on the “+” symbol and select an application. Then select what space you want to add it to by clicking on the space column. To remove it from the list, simply click on the “-” button.

Dock Appearance

You can change the size, and position of your Dock by going to System Preferences and to Dock. The slider at the top changes the size of the Dock. As you add more programs to you dock it will automatically resize. Change the position of the Dock by selecting the Position On Screen option buttons. You can select the animation when minimising windows. Genie effect mimics the effect of of your window being sucked into the Dock, while Scale Effect mimics a Windows-style animation. You also have other Dock options, such as Minimise windows into application icon rather than automatically creating an icon on your Dock. Automatically hide and show the Dock automatically hides the dock when its not in use, to show the dock simply hover your mouse at the bottom of your screen.

Adding Dock Shortcuts

It’s handy to add frequently used folders to your Dock instead of having to navigate to them in Finder or saving them to your desktop. Items at the right of the Dock, for example Applications and Downloads folders, are your Dock shortcuts.To add a Dock shortcut simply drag a folder to this part of the Dock. These folders, by default, are shown as an icon of the last item added. The change to a more generic icon, ctrl click the folder and change from Stack to Folder. When you click on the folder, it pops out if there are only a few files and folders. You can still open open and move files just like any Finder window.

Shortcut Keys

Most of the shortcuts are listed in System Preferences > Keyboard. Select the Keyboard Shortcuts tab and select from the lists. To change a shortcut key. Double click on the item and enter the new keys.